(January 31, 2009 at 4:40 pm)leo-rcc Wrote: Okay, lets for the sake of argument accept that as an end to the means. How does one value the defense of the revolution towards the lives of the thousands of people dying?
Robespierre famously replied to critics ( themselves revolutionaries ), who thought that too much blood was being shed, with the question " would you have a revolution, without a revolution? ".
I think that he was arguing that the situation was so serious that it was unfortunate but essential that extreme measures were needed in extreme times.
Robespierre saw that the revolutionary government had enemies everywhere....royalists and disgruntled aristocrats and clergy in France, emigrees abroad and the country had wars to wage.
Under the circumstances, extreme measures, notably the Reign of Terror, were pursued and " innocent " people were undoubtedly sacrificed. There again, the main protagonists Robespierre, Danton, Desmoulins and others, ironically perhaps ( although I like to think they knew the risks they ran ) died on the guillotine themselves.
Revolutions tend to be bloody. Such is the nature of the beast.
Wars too.
I can only say that if I were French and some of my family had perished in the Revolution, I would be proud if they had been revolutionaries, ashamed if they had been counter-revolutionaries and sad if they had been neither i.e. they should have been revolutionaries.
A man is born to a virgin mother, lives, dies, comes alive again and then disappears into the clouds to become his Dad. How likely is that?
